The Calm after the Storm
by Raven Carmichael
Summary: Mike deals with the aftermath of his grandmother's passing and Harvey does something that's too shocking for words.
1. Chapter 1

A loud knock is heard at the door to apartment 2B. Mike lied on the couch, feeling more stoned than Keith Richards, decided to stay there hoping that whoever's outside would just give up and walk away. He just can't deal with people right now, not after all that he went through. He's still heartbroken at the fact that his grandmother, the only family that he has left since his parent's death in that tragic car accident, has passed away. Leaving him all alone in the harsh, unforgiving world. He then took his emotions out on Harvey after the older lawyer came to drop off a case file for him to proof and was later sent home because of it.

The knocks kept on coming so Mike dragged his drugged induced self and opened the door. There, on the other side stood the Great Harvey Specter, Closer Extraordinaire. Mike felt a small wave of shock through his entire being and after composing himself, asked "What are you doing here, Harvey?" "When I said 'go home', I didn't mean for you to never come back." Replied the older lawyer. "My grandmother died." Mike said solemnly. "I know." Harvey said in understanding. "Obviously you weren't ready to deal with it and I respected that by keeping you busy. Was I wrong?" Harvey asked with a hint of concern. "No." Mike said like a child that's been scolded for having a temper tantrum. "Are you stoned?" Asked Harvey as he looked at Mikes' eyes and saw that his associate's pupils were dilated. "Yes." Came the quiet reply. "Look Harvey, I'm not interested in a lecture right now so whatever you're planning to say you can just drop it ok?" Mike said irritably. "Good, 'cause I'm not interested in giving one." Harvey said as he entered Mike's apartment.

The lawyer then picked up a rolled up joint that was lying innocently on the cluttered coffee table, silently beckoning Harvey to pick it up. "Go ahead, help yourself." Mike said, his voice laced with slight shock and confusion. "Don't mind if I do." Harvey said as he picked up the joint and lit it up with the lighter. The older lawyer took a long drag of the joint and instantly felt a hundred times better than he has ever felt before. It was as if someone took an extremely heavy load off of his shoulders and lifted him high into the clouds above. "Is this from the coffee cart guy?" Harvey asked after exhaling. Mike looked at Harvey with eyes as wide as dinner plates as if his hard-ass boss had been replaced by someone who looks exactly like him but doesn't act like him. Harvey then spotted a bag of pretzels and his chocolate brown eyes lit up like a kid at Christmas as he grabbed the bag like it was filled with the purest gold and started to devour the contents as if he were a man starving to death on a desert island and the pretzels was his only source of food.

"The whole bag?! How do you even do that man?! I've got like crazy cottonmouth over here!" Mike said in complete and utter shock while holding up the empty plastic pretzel bag to Harvey who stuck his head out the apartment window for some air. Harvey pulled his head in from the window and turned around to face Mike and smiled the "I'm the Great Harvey Specter" smile while still chewing on the last pretzel. "That's because Harvey Reginald Specter doesn't get cottonmouf." Harvey said, his head bobbing up and down with every word as if he was a bobble head figurine. "Apparently Harvey Reginald Specter _does_ get cottonmouf." Mike managed to say while laughing his head off like a crazy person. "I can't help it! These pretzels are making me thirsty!" Harvey and Mike both finished the last part of the sentence together which made them both laugh uncontrollably. "Here drink this, Rookie." Mike joked, using Harvey's manly term of endearment back at him as he handed his high-as-a-fruitcaking-kite boss a bottle of ice-cold beer.

Harvey walked over to Mike, took the beer from his associate and took a swig of it and sat down on the couch next to Mike who proceeded to light up another joint, then he reached between his legs and pulled out one of Mike's cheap suit jackets. He looked from the jacket to Mike before starting to berate his disorganized associate. "Have you ever heard of a hanger?!" "Oh God! Wow!" Mike groaned, getting up from the couch and went over to sit at his tiny kitchen table while Harvey walked over to the closet beside the front door of the apartment looking for a place to hang up the jacket. When he couldn't find a hanger in the closet, he turned to the coat rack. The room spun as if he was in some weird dream which he couldn't wake up from and decided that the coat rack was too far away to walk to, so he threw the jacket at it, the garment missed the coat rack by a million miles and fell unceremoniously to the floor. Mike then started to chuckle from across the room. "I just got an image of you as a Dad. You know, a little Harvey Specter all hair gel and wearing some kind of pin-striped oshkosh b'gosh going 'Dad, don't play the odds! Play the man! It's a win-win!'" Mike said in a falsetto voice as if he were a young child. "Then you'd be all 'Go to your goddamn room!'." Mike's voice then dropped an octave as he imitated Harvey's voice, his finger pointing as if he was scolding a child for bad behaviour.

"Hey look at that! You bought an apartment in Manhattan!" Harvey exclaimed as he looked at the pile of littered paper on the table behind the couch. The thought of Mike living closer to him gave the older lawyer an unfamiliar warm feeling deep inside his heart. The smile on Mike's face disappeared as quick as it came and was replaced by a look of pure, raw sadness. "I bought it for her." Mike said, his voice thick with emotion. His eyes gazing at his boss with tears threatening to fall at any given moment. Harvey immediately regretted saying anything as his own face fell as he looked from Mike to the piece of paper stating the purchase of the Manhattan apartment. "Oh." The older lawyer said numbly. "Yeah." Mike said in response as a new wave of sadness washed over him like an ocean wave crashing onto the shore. "You know, I've always hated the word 'orphan'." Mike said after a moment's silence. "Guess I've never truly felt like one. Until now." Mike finished sadly. Harvey's heart nearly shattered into a million tiny pieces as he heard the loneliness etched in Mike's voice. He wanted to comfort the younger man, to make the loneliness disappear and to save his emotionally wrought associate from drowning in despair. He walked over to the small table in two quick strides and sat on the other side and placed his hand gently over Mike's. Mike's eyes then shifted to look at their covered hands, hardly daring to allow himself to believe that the high and mighty, Mr. I-don't-care-about-anyone-but-myself Harvey fruitcaking Specter is capable of showing his true emotions. "Have I ever told you about my Dad?" Harvey suddenly asked Mike. "I think you know the answer to that question Harvey." Mike said while looking at Harvey through his eyelashes.

"My father was a jazz saxophone player. He sat well with everyone and they all loved him. He believed in love at first sight but unfortunately for him, his first sight was a groupie. A good for nothing cheater." The look of rage and hate that Mike saw radiating from Harvey's sharp chocolate brown eyes was frightening to say the very least. "Your mother." Breathed Mike. Harvey nodded and continued on with the story. "I was 16 the first time I caught her cheating. For the next two years I kept my mouth shut, I didn't say anything to my Dad because I knew that if I had told him about it, he wouldn't believe me because he's _that_ much in love with her. So she kept on making a fool out of him. Look, what I'm saying is, I know what it's like to live in a house surrounded by a family who loves you but still be completely alone." Harvey ended his story with his eyes locked on Mike's. It was the first time that he had spoken of his family in _years_ if not _decades_. He could literally count on one hand the number of times he had _willingly _spoken of them and he had never told this particular story to _anyone_. Not even Donna. Being with Mike just makes it that much easier to open up. It scared the living daylights out of him as he finally realized that he actually _wanted_ to tell the kid everything there is to know about him and his sorry-ass excuse for a family with the exception of his father and younger brother of course.

The two men stared at each other for what seemed like forever. A light tingling sensation went through both of their hands as they touched and Harvey began to slowly stroke his thumb along the back of Mike's hand. Harvey then spoke, with genuine affection in his voice. "You're not alone in this world Mike, you're not an orphan. You have me." Mike visibly swallowed, his Adam's apple bobbed up and down, unable to tear his eyes away from Harvey's. Harvey then decided to get a hold of himself before he let this go any further. Mike's been through enough today. His feelings toward his genius associate can wait a little while longer. The older man leaned back in the small wooden chair, grabbing the bottle of beer that Mike had handed him and took another swig of the amber liquid, breaking the spell that had been cast upon him and his puppy associate.

"Man, you being stoned is _so_ depressing. You should never share your feelings again, and certainly not with me." Mike joked lightly after the awkward silence that followed the little staring contest between him and Harvey, which earned him a patented glare from the older lawyer. "What can I say? It's been a long week for the both of us." Mike nodded in agreement. "Hardman." Mike bit out the name of the current managing partner as if it was venom. "What I wouldn't give to piss in that bastard's office." Harvey responded with anger and resentment as he thought of the current managing partner of Pearson Hardman. Mike snickered. "That was quick off the tongue." Harvey smiled at Mike, a look of mischief forming in his eyes. "I've done it before. To Louis." Mike gawked at him in complete and utter disbelief. "No way." The senior partner nodded, a smirk forming on his lips. "Way." Mike continued to gawk like a fish out of water. Then an idea hit him as if an imaginary light bulb had flickered on in his head and he turned to fully face Harvey again saying "Well if you've done it before…" He trailed off, leaving the rest for Harvey to fill in the blanks. "Why not do it again?" Harvey finished with a Cheshire Cat grin on his face as he faced Mike fully. Mike snickered in response as Harvey pulled out his cell phone to call Ray.

Harvey strolled out of the elevator to the 50th floor with Mike hot on his heels. He scanned the empty halls of the deserted office as Mike came up from around him. He had to stop himself from laughing like an idiot when Mike pressed his back against the cool white marble wall as if he was some secret agent or spy going on a top secret mission, slowly poking his head out to look around the corner in the direction of Daniel Hardman's office. They both looked up and down the hallway once more to see if anyone was still mulling around the deserted office, Harvey still wearing the suit that he wore this morning and Mike in jeans and a grey hoodie. Mike was about to make a dart for it like a ninja when Harvey suddenly said, "No, no, no. This isn't right." Mike turned around to look at his boss, "Not right?! What are you talking about?!" His blue eyes begging for an explanation from the older lawyer. "I'm telling you it's not right. If we're going to do this it needs to be original." Out of the corner of his eye Harvey saw the elevator doors were starting to close. He then took two long and quick strides over to the elevator and pushed his arm in between the doors before it could close completely and then returned to Mike's side. "Original?!" Mike said incredulously. "Come on! I drank three Gatorades on the way over here! I'm going to pee orange! It's right and that's all the originality we need!" Mike half whispered and half yelled at Harvey as if his boss had truly gone mad. "I know what we're going to do." Harvey said while walking back to the elevator, resting both hands on the doors, his lopsided smirk growing bigger, playfulness shining within his chocolate brown eyes. Mike's breath was caught by how _sexy_ the man in front of him looked in that perfect camera-ready moment.

Mike had to restrain himself from drooling as he stared at his boss. He saw Harvey raise his eyebrows slightly as he said, the smirk still plastered on his face, "I'm going to get the can opener." Mike stood speechless for a moment, mouth open. He quickly composed himself and asked the older lawyer with a hint of sheer excitement in his voice. "Are you serious right now? You're not screwing with me are you? Are you _finally_ going to tell me what you do with that goddamn can opener?" Mike asked incredulously. Harvey's smirk grew even more wide than it already was. "Do I look serious?" the older lawyer drawled out. "You look like you're stoned." Mike replied without missing a single beat. "I am. But I _never_ joke about the can opener." Harvey said in response with as much seriousness as a stoned person can possibly be. Mike looked back and forth between the direction to Hardman's office and Harvey. "Come on, let's go." Harvey said in a soft beckoning voice. Mike let out an anxious moan before running into the elevator to join Harvey. He then turned to face his boss, rubbing his hands together, unable to hide his excitement. "Alright, what we do is that before every trial, we take the can opener and..." the rest of the sentence was cut off as the elevator doors drew to a close.


	2. Chapter 2

Mike returned to work the next morning slightly hung over due to the alcohol and pot that he consumed last night with Harvey. He walked over to his cubicle to start working on another case that Harvey had assigned him when suddenly, Harvey walked over to his cubicle and asked that he come with him to Jessica's office. Mike was both curious and confused that the managing partner is seeing them during this time of day. Jessica Pearson rarely summons anyone to her office unless it was one of those State Emergency type situations. Mike rose slowly from his seat and followed the senior partner to the managing partner's office. "I've heard that you have some information for me." Jessica said as soon as Harvey and Mike entered her office and sat in the seats across from her desk. "Yes, Jessica. As a matter of fact we _do_ have some information for you that you might find interesting." Answered Harvey. "We've found some information that can be used against Travis Tanner with regards to the lawsuit against the firm." Mike said. "Well, what is it?" Jessica asked, with her elegant brow raised silently commanding the two men sitting in front of her to tell her everything they knew.

"Tanner was not in it together with Daniel Hardman when the CM memo was found." Mike said after a moment's silence. "That memo was a fake planted by Hardman to frame me." Harvey said. "Do you have any sufficient evidence to back up your statement?" Asked Jessica. "No. Not at the moment no." Replied Mike "Then I suggest that you go and find some rock-solid proof to make all of this stick. Or else it's just going to be a bunch of hearsay and that will look disastrous in court." Jessica said firmly. The two men nodded in agreement and Jessica dismissed them from her office with a wave of her hand.

"So, what are we going to do now?" Mike asked Harvey as they left Jessica's office. "You heard her, we have to find some proof to back all of this up and I know how to do it." Said Harvey confidently. "Oh really? Just _how_ are you going to do that Harvey? Go and punch Tanner in the face again?" Mike asked sarcastically. "Actually, that's not such a bad idea." Harvey said. "Wait, what?! You're actually going to punch Tanner in the face again?" Mike asked in complete and utter shock. "Yes, I am. Tell Donna to hold all my calls. I'm going to the gym for a while." Harvey instructed Mike as he walked towards the elevators, leaving Mike standing in one spot, mouth agape, unable to say anything but to do what Harvey asked of him.


End file.
